


Mute

by ateverbti



Category: Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Disturbing Themes, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-04
Updated: 2012-10-04
Packaged: 2017-11-15 15:05:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/528568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ateverbti/pseuds/ateverbti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Loki has his mouth sewn, the world didn’t notice it at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mute

**Author's Note:**

> I would like to thank to my best friend and partner in crime - Andae for translating this piece of text from our native language to English, since I’m really a crap when it comes to this :) 
> 
> Song that was an inspiration for this: Moonspell "Mute"

The world never stopped. Star constellations high above, which bound the firmament, were shimmering. Their gleaming eyes trembled. Wooden fingers of trees, undisturbed, were tearing at the blackness of the sky, rending the following flashes. The earth never split. There was no pain, when the top of a golden needle marked the liar’s mouth with a long thread, sewed the lips together, depriving them of words forever. No monsters appeared, hidden for eternity under the ice of Jotunheim. Nothing happened when drops of blood fell one by one on the marble floor.

No one moved in the silence. No one whispered. Breathless, wordless. Empty, silent. But maybe the world held its breath even for a moment, although Loki knew it was a lie. An elegant, perfect lie, which he wanted to believe in. Something pierced white tulle of horror, someone’s voice. Equally broken, destroyed as he was. He wanted to pretend it did not exist. That there was only him and Odin. Him and the golden thread. Him and blood seeping through the dark shirt.

The scream of his brother, who had never been his brother, slices in half the heart made of ice. It hurts more than the stings, than the humiliation, but it brings hope that he is not alone. Hope that is more terrible than his punishment. Everything seems to fade and disappear. He does not want to turn around, to look behind him, he knows that his brother is screaming, lunging at them. But what for? Blue sparks at his former father’s hands, drifting ahead, hit his breast. There is no silence, there will never be, although no more because of him. Curses and begging, pleas. Somewhere far away, for Loki does not want to hear them, does not want to know who is saying them. But he knows. He knows his mother’s voice only too well. The scream again, when Odin pushes the needle in for the last time, sealing his fate. Not only one anymore, entwined, painful. Teary. From very far away. The moment, after which he should be feeling nothing. He is sinking. Green eyes turn red, narrow hands become numb, long fingers cannot weave spells anymore. And still this sound, which tears at him and beyond him. Like a festering wound.

***

Nights were the hardest. He lay alone, under clean, light covers, staring at the ceiling. He waited. He never wanted to die, even though death seemed truly sweet to him, beautiful. He could not. He lay, stripped of his magic, of his voice. Of his own self. In the night pain was stronger, wounds around his mouth did not want to heal. He still felt the stings, every minute he lived through the nightmare again. He did not want to die, not yet. Maybe somebody would come and drive a dagger into the traitor’s heart, into the liar’s heart. But nobody came. Nights were lonely, dreadful. He could not learn how to bear them. He wondered sometimes if this emptiness, this nothingness he had fallen into before, was better than this, which hung over him now. He was equally forsaken, lonely. In the darkness there was nobody to take his hand, bring him into the light. Green eyes faded, glazed. His cheeks shone with frozen tears. Nobody could know, nobody had the right. Only him and his thoughts. Locked inside walls.

Frigga came to him before the dawn, when the world was wholly gray and meaningless. She sat at his bedside, waiting for him to wake up. For Loki fell asleep sometimes, even though he feared his nightmares more than his loneliness. When the monsters they were telling him about when he was a child were baring their teeth at him, contorting monstrous muzzles, he saw himself in them. Bloody gaze of narrow eyes, blue skin, scar-like lines. His mother’s warm hand woke him up. He did not open his eyes at once, shaking the nightmare off, when he felt a touch on his hair. Quiet, soothing whisper. He knew she should not have been here, that there would be consequences. Odin did not want to let Loki stop suffering even for a short moment. Frigga’s kind voice whispered words of consolation, although he did not know which one of them needed them more. He listened to her anyway, when she washed the wounds around his mouth gently. She talked to him about her gardens, which Loki could not enter for a long time. He missed them, alleys full of flowers of strangest shapes and colors. Warm wind on his face. Thor, who accompanied him sometimes. It would not come back. His room would remain a prison forever. But Frigga still talked, stroking his hair. Her magic, useless, fettered, sparkling at the ends of her fingers. Loki knew that if only it could, it would take all his pain away. It always did. But beside him it was bound in the same way as the words in his mouth were. Odin knew what he was doing. He took his words, took his magic. Everything which Loki was. He left him only dull pain and loneliness.

Loneliness. The order remained the same from the beginning. Nobody was allowed to be beside him, talk to him, touch him. Nobody could even try to cut the bounds which held him. Despite it Frigga tried, every day. Loki merely watched her, with eyes more hollow every day. Weeks passed, then months, and hope he had for a moment faded, then disappeared. Apathy, indifference, silence. Omnipresent, terrible silence. Broken less and less frequently by his mother’s voice. He did not want it. Sympathy from people he had abandoned so long ago. He did not want empty stares or soothing words. He did not deserve them. How easily could he admit it, when he lacked the words to lie. How easily could he understand the truth. Thus he pushed them away more and more, further and further. However, neither Frigga nor the brother who was not a brother wanted to go away.

Thor came sometimes with mother. He was silent, like Loki was. Frigga did not have to say anything, to explain anything, the liar knew. He knew and yet he could not understand. If only he could utter a single question from behind his sewn lips. A single word. He would force his brother to stop. However, he could do nothing, so he bore this cruel silence calmly. Thor usually stood by the door, watched mother wash Loki’s wounds, try to soothe the pain in a shaking voice. He never spoke a word. Loki feared to look at him. The eyes, which used to be blue, bright and beautiful, now darkened. Became dull. And the Trickster knew that it was because of him. Guilt, more overwhelming when he saw his own suffering in Thor’s gaze. His brother who was not a brother. Asgard’s golden son, heir to the throne. Perfect in every regard, beloved son. He died that day. The last words that he had spoken to him when he had been kneeling at his bedside still hurt. Loki remembered them distantly, mad with fever, drowning in darkness.

“I will find a way, brother,” his voice broken, destroyed. “Endure. I will find a way, do everything to free you and may the Norns sever the thread of my life if I fail you,” he was speaking more and more quietly, holding his brother’s hand weakly. “Endure, Loki. Brother.”

From that day nobody heard Thor utter a single word.

***

He was safer in the darkness than in the candlelight. The light summoned shadow, and in the shadows monsters, demons of his guilt. In the darkness nobody could see his broken, emaciated body. Hands, earlier so beautiful and slender, now resembled frail, dry tree branches. Nobody could see his face, cheekbones so sharp he feared his mother would cut her fingers on them. Nobody could see the ribs visible under his skin. His bones. In the darkness Loki was a tangle of skin, dark strands of hair, longer and longer, curling around his neck. He could still pretend he meant something. In the light he knew he was nothing. A shadow of his past self.

Rings he used to love now could not hold onto too thin fingers, amulets too heavy for his barely rising chest. The liar was dying inside himself. Every morning he crumbled to dust, blown apart  by a gentle wind. Soft silks and velvets irritated his skin, left it reddened and scratched painfully. He lay naked, under thin covers. Motionless, staring still at the ceiling, without courage to fall asleep. Pain was still present, though not physical. Other, harder to bear or describe.

He feared the night, hated the day.

***

Loki tried to tear the stitches, Frigga to cut them. Every day, every minute. However, magic was too strong, too distant to catch it in their hands, bend to their will. He surrendered. He waited for somebody to come, to free him. To kill him. Death would be better. He knew that now. Now he wanted to die. Thanos had fulfilled his promise, even though he had ceased to exist a long time ago. When the silence came Loki begged for something as sweet as pain.

Thor came to him at night. He sat at the edge of his bed, silent, determined. He held one of Loki’s knives. The one which had sunk into his flesh during their battle in Midgard. The liar closed his eyes. A sweet end, which would come at the hands of his brother, would be the most beautiful thing he had experienced. However, the dagger never sunk into pale, papery skin, never cut vein and muscle. The blade rested on his mouth. Then he gathered courage to look at Thor, who tried to cut even one thread with trembling hands. Gently, as if not to harm Loki more. Golden stitches were stronger than strings of fate.

He touched his hand then, moved it away from his mouth. He tried to find in faded blue eyes anything else but suffering. He did, although he had never wished to be blind as much as at that moment. The sound of steel hitting the floor was very loud. As loud as heartbeat. Thor hid his face in his hands, helpless, furious. The liar slid long, thin fingers into golden, tangled strands. He calmed him with his touch. If only he had words, he could soothe this pain, tell a lie, cast a spell. But he had only too narrow hands and green eyes, darkening every night. He rose with an effort, ignoring muscles going numb, and encircled his brother with his arms. Pressed him to the bony frame. He felt wetness on his shirt, hugging Thor to him. He should not have been the one to soothe his pain. Not him, not in this moment. The Liar, the Trickster, Loki. Sewn lips planted a painful kiss on the Asgard’s golden son forehead. Drops of blood from unhealing wounds mixed with sweat. Big, warm hands stroked his back gently. He could not cry, he had no strength. Darkness and a spark of warmth, just next to him. Golden light to chase away the monsters.

Thor stayed with him that night. As he did on the following. When the evening came, the chamber-prison doors creaked lightly. Footsteps echoed on marble. Bright light, warmth, just next to him. Nightmares were still near, raised their monstrous head, but could not get close, when his brother embraced him and stroked his hair until Loki could sleep. Exhausted with crying. For the Liar cried. He learned how. He let himself. Thor was beside him. Magnificent, perfect. The heir to the throne. It was not fair. He wanted to hate him, but could not. He wanted to kill him, but knew that he would have to kill himself as well. Darkness could not exist without light. Loki could not live without his brother who was dying every day, embracing him.

There are moments when he wants to hear his voice. When he wants Thor to yell at him, whisper soothing words. But Odin’s son is silent, bound by his oath, which he had not betrayed even to him. He is like a stone, like him. Cold, distant. Only sometimes breath on his neck reminds him that his brother is still beside him, still holds him in his arms, does not want to hand him over to loneliness. Loki does not want revenge anymore, does not want the throne, does not want to be his brother’s equal. He learns to desire nothing, believe nothing but Thor’s soothing warmth beside him. The liar forgets himself slowly, drifts in the sea of words long unspoken, bitter and heavy. He floats away. In this motionless, gray word, Odin’s son is his anchor. In indifferent, primal blackness his hands do not let him drown. Loki wants Thor to leave him, but his brother never does.

***

That day he woke up accompanied only by the grayness of dawn and cold sheets. Thor finally had abandoned him, left. It was for the better, he knew it, although every thought like this clenched its fingers around his throat, deprived him of the remnants of air. That day was different. He almost felt sweet kisses of magic on his hands. He wanted to put his fingers on his lips so badly, tear the stitches with his fingernails. First ray of sunlight fell on the bed, when the prison door opened.

He did not expect them. He never expected them, even though they came every day to be with him in his suffering, together, bound with punishment which they had taken up willingly. He did not understand why Frigga was smiling. He did not want to know why. He did not want to know why Thor wore armor, why was he wounded. He was afraid. He sat on the bed, shaking convulsively, hiding his face in his hands. Cold tears streamed down his cheeks, freezing almost instantly, blood dripped from his wounds. He curled around himself, tucked into small space of his bedsheets. He wanted to disappear. His mother was smiling, warmly, heartily. His brother gripped Mjolnir in his hand. Something changed and Loki did not want to know anymore.

Dull sound of footsteps on the floor, breaths, too quick, frightened. Warm, big hands lifting his face. And bright, vibrantly blue eyes. Loki cries, closes his eyes shut, when he feels soft mouth on his, still sewn. He wants to flee, but Thor’s arms embrace him too strongly, impatiently. He doesn’t know, he doesn’t understand. This last moment, soon his self will float away, depart. It will leave only an empty shell. And then, right in this second, lasting an eternity, he feels pain that brings consciousness back again. He opens his eyes, frightened, stares at his brother. Clutches his fingers on red cloak, digs his fingernails into his brother’s armor, strong enough to leave dents. First stitch breaks. He doesn’t believe. He doesn’t want to believe. How easier would it be to treat it as another punishment, a jest. But then another stitch breaks. And then Loki knows, understands, surrenders. Thor gently, with his teeth, deprives him of this terrible seal. Salty drops from blue eyes fall on his cheeks, nose. Just like the rain after a long drought. Bitten through, torn threads falls to the ground, disappears, sparkling gold. It burns. Loki opens his mouth, the wounds close, magic dances again in his veins. Everything is created anew.

“Don’t cry, it’s fine. Everything will be fine.” Kisses on his hair, forehead, cheeks. Pure and real. “You are safe.”

He tries to say something, but his throat is too dry, he doesn’t believe just yet that he can speak.

“I love you, brother.” He hears Thor’s voice, who presses him to his chest. “I will never again let anybody to harm you, Loki, Loki…”

“We are not brothers,” he responds after a long moment.

The words form themselves out of the void. They fill his being. They restore everything he lost.

“We are not brothers,” he repeats, sliding his fingers into golden strands. “But nobody loves you more than I do,” he tastes bitterness on his tongue, fear and ash.

He doesn’t lie anymore. He cannot lie anymore, when he feels warmth on his skin, touch on his mouth. Loki – the Liar, Loki – the Trickster, Loki – the Jotunn, Loki – Thor’s brother.

***

The world never stopped, never held its breath. The stars and the sun still shone in the sky, as they did since the beginning of time, as they will do. The moment passed, but life still continued, still existed. Loki knew, however, that from this moment forth he too had a place in eternal order of the universe. A place he had never wanted, but now it was entwined with his magic, with his words, allowed him to be reborn. He lay his head on the chest of his brother who had never been his brother, and closed his eyes. He fell asleep, surrounded by his warmth. Without nightmares.


End file.
